


Recompense

by SteeleHoltingOn



Series: Ice and Fire [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteeleHoltingOn/pseuds/SteeleHoltingOn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fr. Daniel Keene reflects on Bucky's confession.   Follows Chapter 49 of Ice and Fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recompense

After the soldier departed, Fr. Daniel Keene finished saying his own prayers and wiped tears from his own eyes.  

In his years, he’d heard confessions ranging from the despicable to the extraordinary.  There were those rare times that confessions were made, not of sin or evil, but of those things that would be impossible to believe otherwise.  

This was one.  Yes, Captain Rogers had given him a sketchy background--enough to ensure the priest would be prepared.  And yet, there was no preparation for the terrible things he’d heard today.  

To discover, in the midst of the darkest degradation of humanity, that love could still be found, gave him hope.  

He went to the rectory, and with shaky hands, he picked up the small, portable altar he stored there.  Tonight, in the privacy of his own space, as he would every night for the rest of his life, he said Mass for James Buchanan Barnes.  It was only a tiny fraction of the recompense that humanity owed the soldier, but it was something he could do.  

Three years later, as he took to bed for the last time, he commanded a young priest who he’d mentored to come by his side. They said Mass together that night, just before Fr. Keene passed on.  And the responsibility for those nightly Masses went to a new generation.  

 

 

 


End file.
